Aside from the physiological benefits, I love running because my mind wanders as freely as my feet when I'm hitting the pavement. I come to my best realizations and rationalizations when I'm out on the road. It's no surprise that many of my blogpost ideas begin to take shape as I'm logging miles.
This post started forming yesterday morning as I spent 46 minutes weaving through the streets of my neighborhood, up and down hills past quaint homes built in the 1960s and 1970s. The streets here are peaceful, quiet, and very long. It's the perfect place to train.
This particular day I was trying to get in some miles before I was to open my door to 40 plus guests for the twins' first elementary school birthday party. Some of the parents I had met in passing, one or two I had managed to forge friendships with, but the rest were basically strangers to me, only familiar by the names of their children whom I'd heard random stories about from my sons.
While my neighborhood could be more diverse, the surrounding areas do not lack diversity at all. My children go to school with children of many different races. Our district office has options for Spanish and Creole on their phone system. This was a conscious choice I made when choosing where to buy a home. You see, I was raised in a diverse school district and I wanted the same for my children.
My husband was not raised with the same level of diversity...heck he didn't even have girls in his high school. I saw the difference that made in us as people when we were getting to know one another. When you grow up one way, you just don't know anything about the other way. Amazing he married me when I'm of a different religion. Of course by now his mind is wide open...he's a good guy, it never took much prying.
President Obama gave his farewell speech last week, and he made it a point to talk about race in America, and just how much work we need to do. How sad it is that I sit here on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday sharing that sentiment. Though I grew up not seeing, or feeling, that I or any of my friends were different, I painfully see and feel it now more than ever. What's transpired in the last few years is something I never thought I'd see. Growing up in the area surrounding New York City, you tend to imagine the whole world is a melting pot of acceptance, but as this country becomes further divided, especially in the wake of the 2016 election, it's getting harder to pretend that it is. My heart hurts over it. It really, really hurts.
Growing up I never felt "white". I never thought I was any different from my friends who weren't white. We were just friends. We were kids, we were teenagers, we were music fans, we were silly, we were serious...but we weren't white or black or Asian, or hispanic...or maybe we just didn't talk about it. Maybe we didn't have to then.
But now, now we have to talk, because things have been moving backwards, or maybe they were never as forwards as I believed they were. For the first time in my life I am hyper aware of my whiteness...and it doesn't feel good. It feels like shame. White privilege has been added to my vocabulary. I never realized just how much privilege being white has attached to it. I feel extremely guilty about it. It's not my fault that I have this...and I just don't know what to do with that.
Race relations are such a fine line to walk. A white person cannot pretend that she knows the struggles faced by a person of color. I've seen arguments break out on this issue on Pantsuit Nation groups...the very groups supposed to be the place of peace, love, and Kumbaya. But really, how can you not get inflamed when you've spent your life with the hyper awareness of your skin color (because society sucks) and then some white chick in yoga pants decides she can sympathize? She can't, we can't, I can't. So I ask my friends of color...what can I do? How can I defend you and walk beside you, without pretending that I know what you're going through? Without feeling that I have to constantly apologize for the actions of others in my race?
That brings me back to the birthday party. Twenty two beautiful children and their parents. All different colors and religions. All a culmination of different experiences and traditions...all sharing this Kindergarten journey together. I saw the faces that matched the names and the stories...but none of those stories ever involved anybody's color. That's the America I thought I lived in, and that's the one I want to work for.
Our school has Peace Prizes they award in each class. The children vote for their classmates (one boy, one girl) who they feel exemplify peace and kindness. One of my boys was voted the winner by his class, the other one said he voted for his friend who won for his class. Many say it starts with the children...but it starts with what they learn from us...I couldn't be more proud.
*Miles logged this week 13.75. Days until Marathon 293.
*Miles logged this week 13.75. Days until Marathon 293.
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